We were introduced to a bunch of new characters and saw a couple old ones return. Just like the original Heroes premier I spent a great deal of it confused as to what was going on and who everyone was. It was fantastic.

Four years after Claire revealed her powers to the world and Evos (people with power) are living their lives and just doing their thing. I thought it was really cool right at the start of the episode seeing what was like an Evo Pride festival.

However, the festival was attacked and barely anyone made it out alive. Noah survived, but he spent a year believing Claire was dead. Now it’s been brought to his attention that that may not be true. It may also not be true that Evos and Evo supporter (Mohinder Suresh) were responsible for the attack.

Now he is on a journey to figure out what really happened that day, find his daughter, and save everyone else with powers before they’re killed. Along the way we’ll meet some new faces and see the return of some old ones while Evos and non-Evos try to save the world from a much bigger threat.

I’m not going to talk about every single thing that happened in the episode because it was two hours and that would make for an obnoxiously long review.

First things first is the characters. Just like Heroes, there’s a ton of them! Jack Coleman returned to play Noah Bennet and I was actually really excited to see him back on the screen. While there were a couple familiar faces in this episode, his is the most prominent and he’s the only main character to return.

Robbie Kay (who some people may know from Once Upon a Time) plays the role of Tommy Clark and so far I’d say he has the coolest power in which he can send things away and to anywhere he’s thinking of. Maybe I’m biased cause I’m a fan of his from OUAT.

This character also kind of reminded me of Claire as he’s in high school and is attempting to be ‘normal’. I saw someone describe his character and his relationship with Emily (Green) as being sort of like Claire and Zack’s relationship from season one, but switched in which Tommy is the nerdy one and Emily is popular.

Zachary Levi has taken a step back from comedy and is playing Luke Collins, one of the antagonists on the show who is going around killing everyone with powers, along with his wife Joanne (Shekoni).

Another set of characters who reminded me of the original series are Miko Otomo (Sukezane) and Ren Shimosawa (Uchikado). Ren is the Ando to Miko’s Hiro.

Miko became a master swordswoman and took on the role of Katana Girl (a character from a videogame Ren plays) and Ren stepped in to help her solve the apparent mystery of her missing father (I’m not totally sure what was happening here).

There were a few other characters introduced including Carlos (Guzman) and who I believe is his nephew (correct me if I’m wrong), Jose (Lucius Hoyos). This was probably one of the biggest surprises of the night because right near the end of the episode it is revealed that Jose has a power. He can like meld himself or sink through other objects (I don’t really know how to describe it other than to say he’s kind of like Kitty from X-Men).

I’m really loving the connections to the old series. Noah is obviously the biggest one, but all these other little things like other characters being similar or the fact that Tommy attends Linderman High School. I just thought all these little throwbacks were a cool addition that really connected the show to it’s roots while still remaining it’s own thing.

There was another character from the original series who they brought back last night, though I didn’t realize it until the end. Molly Walker, the adorable little girl taken in my Matt Parkman? She is now played by Francesca Eastwood and, not going to lie, I was a little confused.

Molly was like, eight? Maybe ten? It was said on the show that four years had passed since Claire revealed her powers to the world and therefore, since the end of the fourth season. But Molly looks like she’s twenty to twenty-five in this show.

Like, okay, sure, maybe she could’ve been a bit older than ten in the original series (not by much), but there’s no way she’s that old yet so if someone can explain this puzzle to me I would greatly appreciate it.

The other character from the original series who returned was The Hatian (Jimmy Jean-Louis). Yes, yes, I know his name is actually Rene, but I spent majority of the four seasons hearing him called The Haitian and therefore that is what I call him.

Unfortunately he was only in the episode for about five minutes as he tried to kill Noah Bennet (apparently Noah had instructed him to do this), but Noah killed him first.

I believe my exact reaction was:

“The Haitian!”
Five minutes later…
“Oh no… The Haitian.”

He got so little screen time! However, I hope Jimmy Jean-Louis was very happy because everyone I saw on Twitter and Tumblr were all incredibly excited to see him back even just for those five minutes.

There’s one character they introduced that I’m so confused about. Who the hell is The Penny Man? It’s like watching the original Heroes before knowing who Noah was. He was The Man in The Horn Rimmed Glasses. Now, Heroes Reborn, we have The Penny Man. He seems like a bad guy, but so did Noah at first, so I have no idea what to think.

Now then, what was probably my favourite part of the entire episode lasted for about half a second and happens when Ren is playing his videogame. He puts on his headset and is going into battle and goes, “Leeroy Jenkins!”

I’m going to assume most of you know what this is from. If not, watch the video below and click this link to read more.

I laughed so hard I had to pause the episode. Kudos to the writers or to whoever it was that included that in the episode. The Internet thanks you.

I laughed this premier and I am so excited to see what happens in the rest of the season! What happened to Claire? What’s going to happen with all these other new characters? How did Molly Walker suddenly age ten years?

****WARNING: This post contains major spoilers for Heroes! If you haven’t seen the show don’t read any further!****

Heroes Reborn starts tonight and to celebrate I decided to talk about the original Heroes series.

Heroes originally ran from 2006 to 2010, ending when it was cancelled before it’s fifth season. Over the four season run, Heroes saw a steady decline in both viewers and quality while it was on air and I don’t think many people were really surprised when it was cancelled.

But I didn’t watch it back then. In face, I watched all four seasons for the first time just a few months ago and I loved the whole thing. I wish it had been renewed for a fifth season because I thought it was a great show.

Season one was definitely the best. It was fresh and exciting and it was a TV show about superheroes! It introduced these amazing new characters who came from all over the world, from different walks of life, and it connected them together. It was truly fantastic.

Each season of Heroes is told through ‘volumes’ with each one focusing on a specific plot. The first volume began in the pilot episode with each subsequent volume beginning in the last five to ten minutes of each season finale (with the exception of season three which contains both Volumes Three and Four). Each of these volumes focused on a specific plotline, usually with the characters facing a new villain.

Volume One focuses on the different characters discovering their powers for the first time as well as the people hunting anyone with powers.

Volume Two goes back and forth between time periods quite a bit as the characters try to stop the Company from releasing the Shanti virus. Throughout this volume we get to see the after effects of the virus being released and what would happen to the characters if that future were to come true.

Volume Three brings Arthur Petrelli (Forster) into play as he leads a team trying to create a formula that will give ordinary people extraordinary abilities. It also bounces back and forth in time again after the attempted assassination of Nathan Petrelli (Pasdar).

The second half of season three focuses on Volume Four and Nathan is actually the primary villain this time around with him making the decision to round up anyone with powers. This volume ends with Nathan’s death, but it isn’t actually the last we see of him.

Volume Five is the final volume we actually get to see in the show and it brings in a new villain, Samuel (Knepper), who wants to expose the truth of people having powers to the world and plans to do so by killings thousands of people without powers. At the same time, everyone involved is dealing with the decision to put Nathan’s mind inside Sylar’s (Quinto) head and everyone not involved is having to learn the truth.

The final volume is Volume Six: “Brave New World” and all we see of this volume Claire revealing her powers (and the existence of everyone else’s) to a group of reporters.

The fact that the series was broken up like this is one of the things I loved best about it. It made it more interesting and the idea of focusing on a new villain or villains for each volume kept you on the edge of your seat the whole time because you never knew what to expect.

One of the best things about Heroes was the constant battle between good and evil. I know, I know, that sounds pretty typical for a superhero show. There has to be a hero and villain for the show to work. But what Heroes did was surprise you with who was actually the hero and who was actually the villain.

All throughout the series the characters were fighting Sylar (formerly Gabriel Gray), a former watchmaker turned serial killed who has the power to absorb the powers of others. However, by the end of season four he’s helping save the world. It’s funny though because we see during the first three seasons that Sylar could actually be a good guy, but his powers prevent him from doing so.

Going the other way, Nathan Petrelli started out as a good guy, but became the primary villain for majority of season three. Now a lot of people would argue that Nathan was never a good guy. I’ve seen a lot of stuff online that says he was a villain. Personally, I always liked him. Not so much in season three, but overall I thought he was a great character and definitely one of my favourites.

Which is why I was so pissed when they killed him! Yes, he technically came back for a bit, but really? I was so angry and while I’m sure the writers had their reasons for doing so, it seemed pretty unnecessary to me.

I think one of the most interesting dynamics on the show was between Peter Petrelli (Ventimiglia) and Sylar. I’ve already said Sylar was a villain. He was inherently evil. Peter, on the other hand, was inherently good, a hero. But what’s really interesting is that they had the same power: the ability to absorb other’s powers.

It was a constant ongoing battle that was so interesting and exciting to watch. It really questioned the reasoning behind why one of them was good while the other wasn’t

Sylar always said his powers were the reason he did awful things, because he couldn’t control himself. But then why didn’t Peter fall down the same rabbit hole?

The whole thing had a rather anti-climatic ending in which Peter hit Sylar over the head with a parking meter and then the two of the teamed up to save the world. I liked it only because, despite being a villain, I really like Sylar and didn’t want either of them to die, but I was a little confused since it seemed to be building to a huge battle between the two.

Sylar and Peter were actually a huge reason as to why I watched the show in the first place. Or rather, the actors who played them. I’m a huge fan of Zachary Quinto and Milo Ventimiglia and have seen much their other work and both actors were phenomenal in this.

Greg Grunberg and Masi Oka also played important roles in this show as Matt Parkman and Hiro Nakamura respectively. Greg’s character had the ability to read minds, but was constantly torn between using his powers for good and wanting a normal life.

Hiro on the other hand knows he must use his power and is completely adorable when doing so. He manages to somehow be incredibly philosophical at times while remaining the eternal optimist (most of the time). Every he gets excited he shouts “Yatta!” and always refers to Nathan as “Flying Man!”

Hiro was definitely a fan favourite.

My personal favourite character was Peter Petrelli. I’m not going to go too much into it here because I could just go on and on. Maybe I’ll do a separate post one day talking about all the characters on the show. I thought Peter was a great character who really sat at the heart of the show. I already mentioned the battle with Sylar, but in so many other ways he was just a constant throughout each season and with everything going on.

Now, there are two more characters I want to mention and that’s because they both played huge roles in the original series and they play huge roles in the new series.

Those characters are Claire Bennet (Panettiere) and her father, Noah (Coleman). I wasn’t a huge fan of Noah at first because of him hunting and capturing people with powers. He grew on me eventually though when it was revealed that he was actually trying to help people and that he knew about Claire all along and was protecting her.

Claire, however, I thought was great from the start. She was a sixteen year old cheerleader with the power to regenerate and she was probably one of the most relatable characters on the show just because of how she handled her powers. She was a teenager who desperately wanted to fit in (at first), but had this huge secret that sort of alienated and cut her off her from everyone ‘normal’. While I doubt anyone in real life has ever felt like that because they’re hiding a superpower I’d say this definitely made her a relatable character to people watching.

There was an amazing dynamic between her and Peter and many people (myself included) thought they were really cute and shipped them together… until it was revealed they were related.

Yup, Claire was adopted when she was a baby and her biological father is none other than Nathan Petrelli. This then makes Peter her uncle and it was with that information that the ship sunk. They were still great together though, just in a less cute-romantic way and more a badass-uncle-niece way.

Now Claire isn’t actually going to be in the new series, but from I can gather it takes place some years after the season four finale and everyone knows about some people having powers.

Jack Coleman will be reprising his role as Noah Bennet in the new series and he is once again a central character. Now that I actually like his character, I’m excited to see where he ends up and what role he plays.

Having all these characters with special abilities meant having to show these abilities somehow. Sometimes it was easy. Matt Parkman just had to stare at people really hard to read their minds while Hiro, if he wanted to teleport, literally just had to blink. He was literally gone in the blink of an eye, ha, I never made that connection until I was writing this.

For others though like Sylar, Claire, Peter, and even Nathan, there was more to it. They somehow had to make it seem like Claire’s bones were sticking out of her sides and stuff was broken and I can guarantee that if you don’t watch The Walking Dead it looks really gross and too real. Sylar and Peter had a whole myriad of powers that included things like telekinesis, invisibly, and shooting things out of their hands, while Nathan has the ability to fly.

This is where you run the risk of your special effects looking really bad. It’s not like it’s a children’s cartoon where they can fire a single beam out their hands or you have squiggly lines appear to show Nathan is flying really fast.

They had to make it look like there was electricity coming out of Sylar’s hands, like Peter was actually invisible, and like Nathan was actually flying and, while the effects were sometimes a little cheesy, it actually looked pretty good. The cheesiness of some things just made it better because it was just funny.

I really enjoyed Heroes. The characters were amazing, the plotlines interesting, the actors were phenomenal, and the special effects (while a little cheesy at times) were equally great.

I watched all four seasons in less than a week because once I started I couldn’t stop. I had to know what was going to happen next. I laughed a lot, cried a lot, and spent a great deal of time yelling at my TV. Basically it was a fantastic show.

I desperately wish it had been renewed for a fifth season so we could’ve seen what happened to all the characters after Claire’s huge reveal at the end of season four. However, I’m really excited and happy for Heroes Reborn. Apparently it’s going to be going back to Heroes roots so I have high hopes that it’ll be good.

Make sure you tune in tonight for the two hour series premier of Heroes Reborn!